Monday, June 25, 2007

This weekend, we missed Gay Pride. (For once "we" actually means "we." Fishwatch and Bigmouth were both in Napa Valley for a wedding). Instead of sitting on someone's roof in the West Village, sipping Pimms Cups and pretending to ignore the gyrating mass below us, we found ourselves seated at the edge of a willow-lined lake in the middle of a tiny vine-covered valley. Instead of sharing a joint with some other guys in polo shirts and flip flops and enjoying the faint feeling of smug superiority, we sat quietly in our suits and watched two straight friends exchange vows.

It made us wonder if we could really do it. Have you ever wondered that? If you could overcome the feeling of strangeness that even we, staunch marriage equality supporters, would feel following those rituals with another man. Would you feel, somehow, ridiculous? Would you feel like imposters? If equal marriage was not yet legalized, but you wanted to wed anyway, would it all feel like a childish farce?

This is really what we sat there thinking. And as we watched our friends get married, we wondered what our own loved ones would think if we had done the same thing. Would they feel strange, too? Would they be turning it over in their minds as they watched us walk down the aisle without the familiar chords of "Here Comes The Bride?"

The next day, we were driving back to the airport in San Francisco, and saw a giant pink triangle that the city had erected on a hill in honor of their own Pride celebration. San Francisco really goes all out for it - not just the gay people. A giant rainbow flag billowed across the front page of the Chronicle, for example, and much of the city was shut down for the march.

It made us remember what happened when we came out to our family years ago. By then our parents were divorced, and we told them separately. But we will never forget that our mother, father, brother and stepmother all said the same thing - that they were proud of us. Ever since then, on Gay Pride, we've kept that in mind. Sometimes having other people take pride in you is almost as important as having pride in yourself.

When we get married, whether it is legal or not, of course it's going to feel strange. It'll take a little extra chutzpah on our part, and on the part of our guests. But even if they feel a little bit weird watching us together in matching suits, exchanging rings, we're pretty sure our loved ones will also feel a little bit proud - that's why we love them.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The State Assembly might be voting on gay marriage as early as today, but the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, said of his chamber, “We’re not doing gay marriage by Thursday; that’s for sure, or this year.” “We’re not going to take a vote; we have too many other issues,” Mr. Bruno, the state’s top Republican, said at a news conference this morning, adding, “We’re not going to spend hours debating an issue that, you know, is not going to be of consequence.”

Um... What? "Too many other issues"? "Not going to be of consequence"?

Hey, Bruno - you realize that this means a significant portion of New York's earning and voting population will be denied basic human rights? Surely even you must understand the bonuses that come along with having a family.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Whew – sorry for the delays in posting. The summer is already taking its toll.

We thought we’d draw your attention to a few hilarious/informative things, in case you missed them. First, check out New York Magazine’s exhaustive essay on the traits and scientific groupings that characterize gay people. Second, make sure you take a minute to examine the genius that is Gay Or Jersey (thanks Gawker). And third, read about what’s going on in the New York State Assembly, which is expected to support the legalization of gay marriage now that Shel Silver will let the issue go before it. It’s likely the issue won’t pass the State Senate, but it’s a big step nonetheless.

Also, on Monday morning, we had breakfast at (a mostly empty) Morandi, and who sat down a few tables away, but Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Lee Curtis! Amazing.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Allow us to get a little personal here. When we were very little, we had a brown, spotted Pound Puppy. He was our favorite toy, and though we eventually got many more stuffed animals, he was always the most important. Since we could put words together, we’ve always wanted to be a writer, and some of our very first stories were about him and his adventures. His name was Pudding.

We had a Pound Puppy-themed birthday party one year, and our love for Pudding eventually led us to browbeat our parents into getting us a real puppy from the pound – who turned out to be the best little yellow dog a boy could ask for (in fact, he was so cute that we actually did kick him once. And you thought that was just an expression).

We’re guessing that you had a similar experience with Pound Puppies – or, if not, with Cabbage Patch Kids, or Teddy Ruxpin. They weren’t girl toys per se, but they were gender-neutral friends on whom you could project any personality, story, or quirk. They, like you, didn’t have to care about lasers or ninjas or mountain bikes. They were just soft and comforting, and non-judgmental. You probably noticed that most of your guy friends didn’t keep their stuffed animals around as long as you did, but you didn’t care. You may have even promised yourself – or the animals directly – that you would never stop caring about them, even when you grew up. You would never, you imagined, let them gather dust in the attic, or be donated to the Salvation Army.

But then you went through puberty and cuddly flights of imagination gradually gave way to bids for more attention from your guy friends and hunts for sex scenes in the books on your parents’ shelves. And up into the attic your Pound Puppies went. But their influence still lingers. You think it’s any coincidence that you’ve seen every single Vin Diesel movie? Look at that mug:

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

So last week we went to our friend Tom Dolby’s party for the book he edited, “Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys.” Sadly we did not appropriately go with any of our galpals, but we did rope New York’s Jesse O. into being our date, which sort of counts. At the party we saw Tom and his dreamy boyfriend Drew F. (who we dated last year – yep, still awkward), and his lovable ex-boyfriend Monte A de L. We also saw Ariel Foxman, who we still want to bone even though he is 5’2” and unemployed, and preppy Justin Belmont, of APrivateClub.com.

The book is a funny (go buy it!) if somewhat disjointed take on gays and the women who love them. The funniest part about the evening was the entrance to the party. It was at Mantra on Second Ave and 52nd (if you’re from New York, you know what that means), right in the middle of heterosexual ground zero. To get to the gay gathering, you had to fight your way through a straight gauntlet to the back stairs. An excellent anthropological study, it was.

One of our favorite essays in the book is by “The Underminer” writer Mike Albo. In it, he coins the term “hag fag.” That is, the boy who flocks to the girls, rather than the other way around. “I have always been a hag fag,” he writes, “since the first grade when I hung upside down with my girl classmates on the jungle gym at recess rather than running around the playground trying to kill and destroy things.” And isn’t it true? Though you gays now may have a circle of women around you who secretly long to date you, didn’t it really begin with you seeking them out, because you didn’t fit in with the boys? Didn’t they take you in, first? It’s really something to think about.

…But not right now. There’s a boy coming over in half an hour and we’re going to get laid, so stop bothering us with your girl problems and let us call you tomorrow and brag about how we scored.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Yesterday we were watching "America's Cutest Puppies" on the WE Channel (we're gay, what do you want?) and managed to catch the New York City Semi-Finals. As adorable puppy after adorable puppy cuddled with the judges, they cut to exit interviews. One exasperated lady judge flung her hands in the air, and said:

"I just don't know how we're going to narrow it down to the top ten cutest puppies in New York city. It's like they're asking us to cure cancer - I don't know if we can do it!"

Friday, June 08, 2007

[Last weekend our brother, Bald Knob, came to visit us in New York. On Saturday night, we took him to Barracuda, to see what happens when an extremely straight dude is exposed to outrageous faggotry. We asked him to blog about his experience. This is what he had to say.]

So I had quite the time in the Big Apple this past weekend, and one of the highlights had to be my first experience at a gay bar (well not the first, if you count one trip to Madrigals in Chicago, which if you know what I am talking about, you know that it definitely counts). After a nice cocktail party, Bigmouth, some friends, including a tall and handsome one, and myself all headed out to an innocent little place called Barracuda.

In addition to making far more eye contact than I ever have at a bar, I also learned quite a bit. For example, I learned what a twink is, what an otter is (even Bigmouth wasn’t so sure about that one, until I explained that his roommate is probably one), and how the flirting process works. “That guy just stepped on my foot!” “Oh, he was coming on to you- that’s how we do it.” Soon, I fit right in…. We made fun of the fag hags, who were dancing as one does only when one is certain nobody is watching- at least nobody that would touch a vagina with a 10 foot pole. But ultimately, the highlight of the night was when closing time drew near, and the desperation in many went from moderately obvious to blatantly overt.

It was a time when just a “casual” bumping in the back, spilling of beer on an arm, or stepping on a toe, were tactics abandoned- and an arm snaking around a stomach, a hand diving for a crotch, and unanticipated close whispers appeared. One man who was particularly drunk did all three, and much more, to each member of our group as we all turned, spinned, bobbed out of his way, which wasn’t particularly hard as he couldn’t stand straight. As we left, I told Bigmouth that “if this had been at a straight bar, and a guy had done that to girls, he would have been arrested,” but the group in general agreed that this wasn’t anything atypical for 4 AM Saturday night.

But as much as the standards of behavior I observed were more “forward” than at bars I was familiar with, ultimately, gay or straight, we’re all the same when we’re single, drunk, and out late on a Saturday night. A few days later at a dive bar in Boston, at 2 AM as the lights came back on, I couldn’t help but notice a drunk girl, a bit overweight and not fortunate enough to be able to offset it with large breasts. She had been running her hand down a handsome guy’s back, and as he turned away, she moved on to a shorter, sunburned guy wearing an ill-fitting suit coat. As he returned her glance and moved in closer, I could see the same predatory look I saw at Barracuda in her eyes. And I quickly realized a fundamental fact that straight women and gay men share (other than relationship drama, a fear of spiders, good fashion sense and the fact that they don’t fart in front of significant others):

When it’s late on a Saturday, and people start heading for the door- just keep trying, and leave nothing to the imagination. Because somewhere, someone has a penis that hasn’t been touched in a while, and is desperate enough to fuck your ugly ass.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

You read that right. We’d never been to the Olive Garden in our whole lives, and thus requested to be taken there by a tall and handsome friend. It did not disappoint.

We went to the one in Chelsea, which we assumed would be barren because no self-respecting gay would ever set foot in those doors (the windows are even slatted so you can’t see in – as though inexpensive family Italian food were pornographic!). In fact, around the bar there were tons of gays. A few even seemed to be on dates, like us, but without irony!

It was like going to a suburb-themed amusement park. We got a wiggly beeper to tell us when our table was ready, and when we were seated we ordered a bottomless garden salad with iceberg lettuce. The waiter asked us if we “liked wine,” and then offered a sample of a Cavit Pinot Noir (Cavit, you may recall, also makes that Pinot Grigio that you often pick up at that cheap liquor store on your corner, on the way to that party you don’t want to go to, because it only costs $7.99 a bottle). A highlight of the appetizer course was when a woman across from us leaned over in her chair, paused, and then farted through her pink jeans loud enough for us to hear fifteen feet away. It appeared that she, also, was on a date.

To be honest, the food was extremely tasty and we ended up completely stuffed. The wine we ended up getting was decent, and the waitstaff was friendly and unpretentious. Had we not been seated across from a charming boy, it all may have been different. But as it happened, our date at there was one of the best we’ve had in a long time.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

We’re not sure whether this has anything to do with being gay, but sometimes we like having episodes of television shows explained to us. We’re not good at verbally recapping shows (and we can NEVER get the jokes right), but we could sit around listening to other people re-tell jokes from sitcoms for hours. Just like we could sit around and watch people play videogames for hours – though that’s mostly because we ate the pot.

Anyway, on Sunday night we spent a good twenty minutes listening avidly as a tall and handsome friend told us what happened on the Sopranos. We don’t even know who any of the characters are! (Except for Jamie Lynn Sigler, who we mostly know because like all fag hags, she used to be fat and now she’s just desperate). It was delicious.

If you’re like us, and you like talking about what happened on television last night because it’s better than what happened in your real life last night (watching Will & Grace on Lifetime, viewing between 30 and 75 fifteen-second clips on various porn-gathering sites, looking at your own face very closely in the mirror for ten minutes), then you should definitely check out our friend’s new TV blog on Women’s Day.

(Also, if you’re like us, you will get distracted by the amazing other things on this site, including the “One Good Thing” feature, which has taught us the glories of the mini Scott Lint Sheet! Thank God we have women there to dream up products for gay men to enjoy.)

Monday, June 04, 2007

After that despicable post, a moment of sobriety: the Human Rights Campaign has released its scorecard of where the eight democratic candidates stand on gay issues. This is a must-read for gays this year. While you may not be a one-issue voter, it’s really important to know what you’re supporting.

While all candidates support equal rights and benefits for committed same-sex couples, that does not actually include full marriage. Only Dennis Kucinich and Gonzo Gravel go balls deep on that front. All of them, however, are against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

It’s not the results we’d want, but it’s certainly a big step. We’d focus on it more, but we’re still reeling from the fact that HRC actually did something useful for once.

This weekend we went to see “Knocked Up” and even though we arrived fifteen minutes early, we still could only find seats in the front row. This meant that when the inevitable birth scene popped up on screen, we were front and center for the action. We had heard it was funny, so we were excited.

[Spoiler alert – If you want to see this movie and want to remain surprised by a relatively small but key gag near the end of the film, stop reading here. We are going to use capital letters so you’re probably see what we’re going to write anyway, but don’t say we didn’t warn you]

Then it happened. Midway through the scene, which mostly entailed a lot of yelling and begging for drugs, it exploded onto the screen like the EYE OF SAURON. That’s right, a VAGINA. And not just any run-of-the-mill, shaved Britney Spears POONANI. It was a DISGUSTING, RED, SWOLLEN, SWEATY SLIT. WITH A BABY’S HEAD COMING OUT OF IT. We nearly died. And you know why? Not because we think PUSSIES (or “FRONT BUTTS,” as our straight brother calls them so that we gays understand what he’s talking about) have teeth or contain garden gnomes operate on a sandpaper-suction principle. No, we nearly died because we understand CUNTS perfectly and think they are appalling.

Now, don’t get us wrong, “Knocked Up” is a great movie that everybody will like. But if you’re like us and have sworn off of TWATS ever since one regrettable incident in high school involving your best guy friend and your best girl friend and some Captain Morgan and Diet Coke, you may want to shut your eyes for just one scene.